Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Masquerade

Mas′quer·ade′ (măs′kẽr·ād′), n. [F. mascarade, fr. Sp. mascarada, or It. mascherata. See Mask.]

1. An assembly of persons wearing masks, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions.

In courtly balls and midnight masquerades. Pope.

2. A dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask. See 1st Mask, 4. [Obs.]

3. Acting or living under false pretenses; concealment of something by a false or unreal show; pretentious show; disguise.

That masquerade of misrepresentation which invariably accompanied the political eloquence of Rome. De Quincey.

4. A Spanish diversion on horseback.

Mas′quer·ade′, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Masqueraded; p. pr. & vb. n. Masquerading.]

1. To assemble in masks; to take part in a masquerade.

2. To frolic or disport in disquise; to make a pretentious show of being what one is not.

A freak took an ass in the head, and he goes into the woods, masquerading up and down in a lion's skin. L'Estrange.

Mas′quer·ade′, v. t. To conceal with masks; to disguise. "To masquerade vice." Killingbeck.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.